Hybrid vehicles, plug-in, purely electrical vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, and battery charging systems generally use voltages in excess of 60 V. In some jurisdictions, battery-operated vehicles are required by law to be equipped with protective devices such as fuses, circuit breakers or main contactors if the rechargeable power storage systems are susceptible to overheating by an overload current. These protective devices isolate the power storage unit safely from the high-voltage circuit in the event of a current overload, regardless of circuit's current direction. Corresponding electromechanical circuit breakers are known and are often referred to as relays, high-voltage contactor or simply contactor. The basic function of these types of circuit breakers is switching high electrical output in a load circuit with the aid of a comparatively small current, i.e. a control current. A circuit breaker of this type generally comprises two electrical contacts that are closed or connected by a movable contact. The movable contact is moved between an inactive position and a switching position by an armature guided via a coil and in the coil.
The German patent application DE 10 2015 224 658, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, describes an electromechanical circuit breaker with two pairs of contacts, with one contact of each contact pair being arranged in spaced relationship on a contact bridge.
Modern electric vehicles utilize an onboard voltage in excess of 400 V, for instance 480 V. Large currents are transferred from the battery to the actuators that are to be switched by the electromechanical circuit breakers. Known circuit breakers suffer from various drawbacks, such as their coupling attenuation. Prior art systems attempt to combat coupling attenuation in the control device that triggers the circuit breaker, which allows the interference to spread through additional couplings.